ANGELINA’S OPINION OF THE WEED.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 4, 22 April 1893, Page 6

ANGELINA’S OPINION OF THE WEED.

I found some rubbish about tobacco which Edwin had written, and took the liberty of substituting my own views on that subject putting Edwin’s, very properly, in the fire. When Eve ate that unlucky apple, fruitful source of all our woe, the Prince of Darkness carried away two of its seeds in his pocket, and planted them on earth to snare men. They grew into the vine and the tobacco plant, and became respectively the curse and the bane of poor women ever after! When the young male child first feels within him the working of the spirit of evil, he buys a penny cigar, and borrows from the Demon a spark of brimstone to light it. . . . When he has recovered from the effects, he buys another. Tobacco is his first love, and the only one he is ever faithful to ! Taboo her in polite society—forbid her entrance to elegant assemblies—shut your drawingroom doors upon her —man only flies with indecent haste to meet her on the sly at clubs and music halls. Well may we women loathe tobacco, for she is our most insidious and dangerous rival; she goes with our husbands everywhere —even to Paris. You may take everything a man possesses away, as long as you leave him his pipe. Oh, I knoiv if one would only read “ between the lines,” in the Book of Job itself, one would find that the man of Uz had a meerschaum pipe quietly tucked away in his pocket all the time; the devil knew better than to deprive him of that! He had his friends to see him, too, and the ash-heap was a smokeroom which told no tales. Poor, patient Mrs Job !—The Idler.